Recovery
by junkerey
Summary: Deanna and Al Calavicci share Project Observer duties as they assist Doctors Sam Beckett and Sammi Jo Fuller in their Leaps through time, but as Deanna struggles to heal from an accident, the burden of monitoring the wayward Leapers falls onto Al's shoulders. Can Deanna find a solution to their dilemma, and overcome the trauma of her accident?
1. Chapter 1

Deanna Calavicci pressed her lips together as she performed a front t-stop, her arms stretched out to her sides, palms up and chin raised, as she fought to slow her momentum while maintaining a certain amount of grace and balance. The grating bite of the figure skate blade rattled up through her straight, extended right leg, and she winced as she let the toe of her left boot rest against the outside of the right boot. She stood there for a few moments longer, to reassure herself that she had, indeed, completed the movement, then stumbled out of the position and reached for the plastic edge of the boards that surrounded the ice rink.

Her black-gloved hand fell short of its goal, and she dropped to her knees in exhaustion. Several sharp points of pain shot through her body as she hit the ice—but she judged it to be a bearable amount of pain—and she tried (for perhaps the fifth time that day) to tell herself that she should be grateful. Results had been achieved. Many hours of intense rehab went into achieving that one simple word. _Bearable_. It didn't feel like such an achievement when the nerve endings in her body screamed out in protest, however.

"Damn it," Deanna panted. She pressed her covered palms flat against the cold white surface and let her head hang down, her jaw clenched in irritation as she searched for the energy to pull herself back together.

"Deanna!" The sharp cry of concern that echoed across the silent rink made her close her eyes in irritation.

"I'm fine," she said in a sullen voice, without looking up. A steady patter of footsteps slowed as they neared the open gate of the rink, then stopped. "I'm fine, Dad," she repeated. "Just give me a minute."

She opened her eyes again as Admiral Albert Calavicci extended a hand to her. With some reluctance, she reached out for it and let him tug her gently onto the smooth rubber floor that surrounded the makeshift rink.

"Honey…" he began in a halting tone.

Al's intended words of gentle admonishment trailed off as he helped Deanna regain her feet—with some difficulty. His first stroke, eight months ago, had left him with minor but permanent weakness on his left side. The second one he'd suffered a few weeks earlier (although it had been treated quickly to reverse its effects) did little to help his long-term recovery. He braced his thin legs and helped her up with a grunt of effort, then accompanied her over to a nearby bench where the both sat down on the cool wood boards. For several minutes, the two Calaviccis stared out at the harsh scratches that Deanna's figure skates had made across the dull surface of the ice. Al waited until Deanna's sharp, rapid breaths had slowed to a more controlled rate before he spoke again.

"I don't know what to say," he confessed. He reached down and caressed his left leg with his hand, then gave her a pained expression. "You're pushing too hard. You can't force your body to recover any faster than it wants to."

Deanna gave a slight jerk to her head. "I have to push it," she replied as her gaze followed the movement of his hand on his half-numb thigh. "I have to get back into the Imaging Chamber. You can't keep doing double duty with Sam and Sammi Jo like this, day after day. You need some time off." She gestured in front of her. "Rehab was hard, and getting back on my feet was no treat. Being the ice after so long was no picnic, either, but I did it. I just _proved_ that I could do it. Now I can get back to work—"

"No," he retorted in a stern voice. "Not until the doctors have cleared you, and according to their last report, you're not ready to resume your duties yet." Al's voice took on the tone of Interim Project Leader, with a touch of his Admiral's background in it, as he spoke. "We have a very demanding, stressful position here. I ought to know. And until the doctors say it's okay…"

"Doctor_s_." She emphasized the "s" and gave him a sideways glance, not willing to or wanting to challenge his authority, but subtly indicating that she knew what he meant by "doctors." Her primary care doctor in Albuquerque had done all he could, and he had no more input on her condition; orthopedics had signed off, she had no more need of regular medications, and the rehab specialists had expressed astonishment and admiration at how quickly she'd managed to get her body back into shape. But her psychologist had other reservations.

Deanna shut down any further thoughts on the matter and pulled her gloves off, then fumbled with the laces on her skates until they loosened enough to allow her to remove the boots. She dropped the skates onto the floor, reached beside the bench, and tugged on a pair of well-worn gym shoes.

Al's restless hand curled itself into a still, solid fist. "Do me a favor," he said in a soft voice. "Today's Thursday. Take the weekend off. Don't have anything to do with this place for the next three days. Just go away from here for a little while. You used to love to travel."

Deanna looked away, sat back, and let her gaze wander over the large, windowless room—the ceiling lights tucked up among the metal roof beams, the plain white walls, and the small ice rink her father had given permission for her to construct as a recreational distraction from the stresses of their shared roles as holographic assistants. It had cost her about $80,000, but she didn't mind the financial sacrifice, because it offered a nice break from the duties assigned to her… or, rather, impressed upon her, with the integration of her cells into the facility's super-computer, Ziggy.

The rink occupied what had been an unused storage room three floors below the surface of the New Mexico desert, one of many empty spaces created after the government came in to clear out any items that they deemed unnecessary for the facility's operation. The budget cuts went right to the bone, leaving Project Quantum Leap with a skeleton crew and support staff, but the Project had to be kept open until Doctor Samuel Beckett returned. Now an additional wrinkle existed because Doctor Sammi Jo Fuller, too, had experimented without authorization and "Leaped" through time. Due to a reconfiguration, Sam had gone fully into his Leaps, but Sammi Jo—whose Leap worked off the original Project Quantum Leap plans—did what Sam had once done: she left behind what the Project termed a "visitor" in her place, one that looked like her on the outside, but turned out to be a total stranger from another time and place.

As a result, both Al and Deanna Calavicci—forever linked to Ziggy's circuitry by the cells that had been taken from the backs of their hands, both carrying a slight scar on the skin just behind their thumbs to mark their sacrifices—had become Project Observers for each lost scientist. Deanna, however, had the tougher arrangement, tending not only to an uncooperative and unappreciative Sammi Jo (the two women had a long-standing dislike of one another) but also to Sammi Jo's displaced visitor.

But if Al's responsibilities seemed to have lightened with Sam's rewiring efforts, which erased the need for Sam to exchange places with someone in time and to deal with an incoming stranger on each Leap, they'd increased in another direction. Sam no longer had someone else's persona to protect him, which meant that with each of his new Leaps, he went as-is, with whatever clothing, identification and money he had on him, which only increased the struggles that he found himself in. Sam had no more of an "in" on a given situation.

And after Deanna's accident, Al then took on doing double duty in order take care of both Sam and Sammi Jo… less than a month after his second stroke. Al's own doctor urged him to quit or find a replacement, but that simply could not happen. So, as soon as she could stand up from the hospital bed, Deanna began to force herself back to physical health. Unfortunately, the trauma had played havoc with her mind, and the PTSD refused to heal as well or as quickly as her broken bones.

"Go somewhere," Al urged her. "See some old friends, visit a new place. Something."

Deanna stood up with some effort, braced one arm against the wall, and gave her head a slow shake. "If anyone needs a break, it's you."

He released his characteristic rough chuckle. "Yea, that's never gonna happen. You and me are the only ones who are hard-wired to do this job. Which means that sooner, rather than later, Tina and Gushie and the other techs better damned well figure out how to get Sam and Sammi Jo home."

"Yea." Deanna looked away again, the word little more than a puff of air.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, I've landed. Where the hell is Deanna?"

Sammi Jo Fuller gave Al Calavicci a look of irritation as he fiddled with his hand link. It had been a long day of having to deal with Sam Beckett's latest situation—he'd been arrested after Leaping into the middle of a car dealership showroom at 4 a.m.—along with the ever-present tension of waiting for Sammi Jo to re-emerge from the crumpled string of time into her new body and new assignment. Sometimes days or weeks went by in between a Leaper's appearance from one place in time to another, but Sammi Jo had been "missing" for a few months; only the data readout from Ziggy reassured the crew at Project Quantum Leap that she remained floating in the ether, and had not emerged and died somewhere. As a result, Sammi Jo's casual attitude rubbed him the wrong way from Second One.

Her words brought a frown to Al's face, which he tried to mask by retrieving the information she needed, smacking the device between his palms a little more than necessary to make it seem as if it didn't work right.

"Just so you know," Al said slowly, "you've been gone for over two months now." He glanced up at her and found a twisted delight in the shock that spread over her features.

"Two _months_?" she gaped. "How is that even possible?"

He held out his hands and gave a shrug. "How is any of this possible? You'd have to ask Sam. Except right now, you can't, because he's in a jail in Kansas City, facing burglary and trespassing charges in 1975, and you're working at a coal mine in the backwoods of Kentucky in 1989."

Sammi Jo studied Al's face for a moment. "You're taking care of both of us right now, aren't you?" She paused. "What's happened to Deanna?"

With a long sigh, Al lowered his hands and pulled his attention away from the 'link. "If you don't mind," he said in a tired voice, "can we get on with this? If she wants you to know, she'll tell you when she sees you." He gave her a bitter grin, and his words dripped with irony. "Let's just say that for now, it's on a 'need to know' basis."

Sammi Jo crossed her arms and looked away. She understood the "dig" behind his words, which referenced how, in another dimension of time, Sammi Jo kept Deanna in the dark on as many of her activities as she could during the course of Project Engram, the re-named replacement for the seemingly-failed Project Quantum Leap. Years had been lost where Sammi Jo could have shared her efforts at redesigning Ziggy with another brilliant mind, but because Deanna had been assigned by the government, she instead treated the Navy Lieutenant with nothing but scorn and suspicion… and put he on a "need to know" basis.

She wanted to drop the subject, but something about the deep shadows under Al's eyes made her ask another, more hesitant, question. "Is she all right?"

Al gave her a sharp look, but because he sensed a level of genuine concern in her inquiry, his own response softened. "For now. She's workin' on it. There's some things you don't snap back from, and for her, this might be one of those. We'll see." The tension returned to his voice. "Which means the next time you see her, little lady, you'd better damned well lighten up on her and change your attitude." He turned his attention back to the hand link. "But then, I think we both know the likelihood of that happening," he muttered.

"Tell me what I need to know, already," she snapped back with obvious irritation.

Al let out another long, tired sigh, rubbed at his eyes with his free hand, and proceeded to tell her who she'd Leaped into, the circumstances surrounding her appearance at that particular juncture in time, and what she had to do to fix the problems at hand. Sammi Jo suppressed her impatience as he rattled off the necessary information, eager to get to it so that she could Leap out again and, hopefully, return to home base… but she also took the time to study Al a bit closer.

From the first Leap, Deanna had been the only one to step into the Imaging Chamber on her behalf. At the time, she explained how a second Imaging Chamber had to be built in order to track and assist Doctor Sam Beckett, and that her father, Al Calavicci, resumed his duties in the more up-to-date one (which also included a free-floating chair for him to sit in, given his age and medical issues). Deanna never got into details, but Sammi Jo could pick out the slight limp and weakness in his stance—along with the exhaustion that bowed his shoulders and created a ragged, strained edge to his already-gravelly voice.

Even as she absorbed the data that Al provided, Sammi Jo's mind went off in another direction, weighing his words about Deanna. Despite the animosity between the two women, they each held a grudging respect for one another. Deanna took a particular amount of seriousness in her responsibilities as Assistant Project Observer, not just in an attempt to downplay the family legacy or the genetic connection that contributed to her assignment, but also because she possessed an inherent need to do the best job that she could—a drive that Sammi Jo also shared.

"Any questions?" Al asked as he wrapped up the explanation.

Sammi Jo shook her head, and Al punched the hand link and opened the door, which rolled up to reveal the bright blue light from the other room. Just as he prepared to step through, however, Sammi Jo stopped him.

"Al?"

He made a slow turn, curious about what she might want.

"About Deanna… does this have anything to do with Steve? I know they were having problems, and… well, he was having problems with his work load. And his… you know, his drinking."

A muscle in Al's left cheek twitched. "I'm sorry to inform you," he replied in a flat tone, "that Doctor Steven Boyd is dead."

"Dead? How?"

"Car accident. Rollover. Two and a half months ago. He wasn't wearing a seat belt, and he was ejected from the vehicle—and decapitated."

Sammi Jo made the effort to speak, but found that she could only mouth the words "car accident" instead. She paused, squinted in suspicion, then cleared her throat and tried again. "That's a heck of a detail, Al," she said, a little louder than she expected. "'Decapitation.' You had to throw that in for some reason?"

With a steely glance in her direction, Al turned his back to Sammi Jo and stepped into the other room.

"Deanna woke up with his head in her lap," he said with his grip tight on the hand link, "The rest of him was in a ditch. And if you ever mention that I told you that, I swear to God, I will track you down through time and space, and wrap my hands around that prissy little neck of yours. You got me?"

Sammi Jo swallowed. "Yes, Admiral," she said in a subdued voice.

The Imaging Chamber door slammed shut, and Sammi Jo's hands came up to cover her nose and mouth. She stood there as Al's words reverberated through her mind, her fingertips trembling against her nose and her closed hands echoing the sound of each deep, slow breath back to her.


End file.
